After the injunction in Australia, Apple has done it again, this time in Europe. The regional court of Dusseldorf, Germany, has granted Apple the preliminary injunction against Samsung and its tablet, the Galaxy Tab 10.1.

The injunction is applied in all European countries except the Netherlands. To comply with the injunction, Samsung must stop any sales of the Galaxy Tab 10.1 immediately.

Unfortunately for Sammy, any appeal will take four weeks to be heard by the same judge. Meanwhile, if Samsung decides to sell the tablet, it would risk a hefty fine ($350k) and maybe imprisonment.

“It’s no coincidence that Samsung’s latest products look a lot like the iPhone and iPad, from the shape of the hardware to the user interface and even the packaging. This kind of blatant copying is wrong, and we need to protect Apple’s intellectual property when companies steal our ideas.”

Earlier this week, we learnt that Apple and Samsung have agreed to not sell the Galaxy Tab 10.1 in Australia waiting a court hearing.

However, Samsung has decided to launch the tablet Down Under justifying that the model in question was different from the one Apple tried to block.

We believe that Apple is feeling threatened by the rising of Samsung in the mobile market and therefore tries by all means to put a stop to it.

In a statement issued by Samsung when Apple tried the same tactics late June in the US, Samsung said:

“Samsung believes there is no legal basis for this motion. We will continue to serve our customers, and sales of Samsung products will proceed as usual. Samsung will continue to actively defend and protect our intellectual property to ensure our continued innovation and growth in the mobile communication business”

Is Apple genuinely worried about their intellectual properties or feels threatened by the competition?

Rathis Kay

I've been interested in anything gadgety since I was a kid. I love talking about too, so now that I can blog about it, it's a great opportunity for me. I hope you enjoy my posts, don't forget to comment and follow us on Twitter: @gizmodesire